Before you teach — read this first

Grade 4 · Lesson 34 — Explanatory — Revise for language

Road-map project · blocked · 30 minutes · 20 slides · Launch → I do → We do → Read → You do → Closure
The language behind this lesson — read this before you teach it.
EXPLANATORY

What it is. Revision improves the language; editing corrects errors. Two different jobs, done in that order.

Why our test works. Told to improve it, children correct spelling and change nothing that matters, because correcting is easier and feels productive. Separating the jobs by name — and doing revision FIRST, before anything is polished — is what makes revision happen at all.

Leans on. Grade 3 lesson 35; and every academic word met this term.

Watch for. Set a number — change three words, no more. Open revision produces nothing at this age.

What this lesson is

Revise for language of the explanatory project. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher shows the road map with today's slot named, and models revise for language on the The class reads Writing Book 4, p.73 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.

Why it matters — say this in your own words, about ten seconds.
“Returning to your own work to better it is not doubt; it is care.”
A different reason every lesson, on purpose. It is not on a slide and it is not a script — if you have a better reason today, use yours. What should land is the idea, not a sentence they can recite.
How it goes

You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds. Before anything new, sixty seconds of retrieval on U9 set 1: ask, take the answers from boards rather than hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on.

Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher shows the road map with today's slot named, and models revise for language on the class piece — one slot only, so the model is followable. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.

The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class works the same slot on the shared piece, then reads two versions aloud and says which is clearer and why. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.

They open Writing Book 4 to page 73 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.

Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: In your notebook: revise for language for your own piece, double-spaced so there is room to correct.

You close on the exit direction — Read the one sentence you are most sure of. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Revising changes words. Editing fixes mistakes.

Exit directions — in full, standing still, before anyone moves
Notebook and pencil · Heading first · In the notebook: revise for language for your own piece, double-spaced so there is room to correct.
Watch for

Set a number — change three words, no more. Open revision produces nothing at this age.

As-Suffah Academy · Writing · narrative brief